"Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul . . ." ~Emily Dickinson

05 October 2009

People Like Me

What I love about hip hop--real, pure hip hop--is that it puts music to storytelling. One of my favorite storytellers these past few years has been the dusty foot philosopher K'naan from Somalia (though he spent a significant part of his life in Canada when his family had to flee his war-torn homeland).

So many songs have spoken to me on different days since I've been listening his latest CD Troubadour almost obsessively the past few weeks. Today, though, his song "People Like Me" spoke most to me. I felt like the stories in this song were having a dialogue with the stories of people on our Pray With Africa prayer community. Specifically, this morning I was most moved by a prayer on our site from a woman named Monica:

I pray that I may find serenity and strength to overcome an addiction that I have had for many years to doing harm to myself. I cannot do this alone--only by the grace of God and the blood of Jesus Christ who has given and sacrificed all that I require for this life and the eternal. Help me to love myself that I may better love and serve others. Amen.

All around the world, there are hurting people surviving on hope and a prayer, and I like that K'naan writes his own prayer, asking God to open the doors of heaven for hurting people like all of us . . .

Heaven, is there a chance that you could come downand open doors to hurtin' people like mePeople like me (4x)

Is it fair to say that I am stressing outI'm stationed in Iraq, and they won't let me outMy homeys said I was stupid for even joiningMy counselor said that my decision was disappointingHow she had good for good state collegesand with my good grades it wouldn't have been a problembut they don't understand the power of significancemore than brilliance and certainly more than dividendsand if you ask me now would I repeat itWould I fight in a war I don't believe inWell the answer is if not me where the cancer isthey been doing this before Jesus of Nazarethand after all this time it is still deadly hazardousand bush isn't really being all that inaccurateWhen he says we're winning the war cos its staggeringbut that's 'cause we're killing everybody that we seeand most of us soldiers we can barely fall asleepand time and time again I'm feeling incompetentcos my women back home, we're constantly arguingand i must be crazy cos all I'm obsessing with isher Myspace and Facebook and who's commentingI swear to God if she's cheatin' I'm doin' her ass inI can tell with one look and it came to me sounding like something from a song hook

Heaven, is there a chance that you could come downand open doors to hurtin' people like mePeople like me (4x)

Meet Sarah, the proud mother of young Sebastiansuburban professional went to college in AshlandIn self pity she suddenly cried,would my life be important if I suddenly died?Neighbors saying what a nice women she waskeeping mostly to herself ever since the divorceand with the company downsizin' and the fall and allshe really shouldn't take it that personal at allIt wasn't her boss who had his eyes on her thighsand got a rise from her risin' off the desk thoughand despite rememberin' sayin' no plenty of timesit was still a damn surprise being let goand now stuck with a mortgage she cant affordand too educated to blame the corporate worldShe got on welfare and hated it case work a power trippin'and generally being degraded if,nothing else she was treated sickand ineffective which is the worst thingthat she'd been left withDamn, no magic from David Blane,no painter to pain this pain,No Morgan Freeman to narrate the shameSo she took refuge and prayerkinda like findin' God in the phone bookand it came to her sounding something like a song hook

Heaven, is there a chance that you could come downand open doors to hurtin' people like mePeople like me (4x)

I guess I told you about myself to a degreejust by telling you about people like mebut people like me they speak politelythey don't start no beef or piece of white meatEverybody gotta eat but everybody doesn'twhich is why i want to tell you about my favourite cousinhe and I grew up where the sun shinesand we both partook with the gun crimesand we both liked American rap rhymeseven though we didn't understand one lineif you remember my line of notes in my last albumI talked about a close call with a grenadeI think we both must have been about 7th gradeBut don't panic. We both survived without damageBut we developed a bond like we survived the TitanicBut when the country became franticmy mother tried to get us out, planned itto the last detail except the plan got derailed'cause there wasn't enough money for the plane ticketsHow bitter when my mother had to chose who to take with herso my cousin got left in the war and that's just hard to recallbut now i take refuge in prayer,kinda like finding God in the phone bookIt came to me sounding kinda like something from a song hook.

Heaven, is there a chance that you could come downand open doors to hurtin' people like mePeople like me (4x)

Heaven, is there a chance that you could come downand open doors to hurtin' people like mePeople like me (4x)